


Denial (Ain't Just a River In Egypt)

by Headphone_Love



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Cheesy, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Hinata Shouyou is Sunshine, M/M, Oblivious Hinata Shouyou, Oblivious Oikawa Tooru, Oikawa is a human, Shouyou is a Merman, They're really both just clueless, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 08:30:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15457347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Headphone_Love/pseuds/Headphone_Love
Summary: Oikawa needed a fake boyfriend for the next few months.Shouyou was a mermaid that had no trail in the human world.It was too perfect.





	Denial (Ain't Just a River In Egypt)

**Author's Note:**

> Did someone ask for Oihina?  
> Just a little present for Mooks! Who knows, maybe I'll continue it in the future after requests and stuff ;)

Oikawa wasn’t sure how Shouyou would take his request considering that they’d only met a few months ago.

He wasn’t even sure if Shouyou knew what boyfriends were, or what they did, or how they were meant to behave. It had taken all but two weeks to convince the mermaid—man? Oikawa still wasn’t sure what to call him—that he was friendly, and another after that to explain the concept of friends. It wasn’t that Shouyou didn’t know what friends were, but it seemed that the terminology was a lot simpler in mermaid/man terms.

Loved ones and unloved ones.

“You are here.”

Oikawa tensed at the voice, eyeing the water and spotting the familiar orange pair of eyes. “Uh...I, yes.”

Smooth.

Shouyou pushed swam closer, face surfacing as he leaned forward, arms against the rocks.

Oikawa watching with the same fascination that he had every time Shouyou arrived. It was an experience that only he was allowed and that in itself made it all the more special.

“How are you so sure I’ll return every day?” Shouyou asked, eyes flickering in amusement. “You know our kind does not think highly of...humans."

Nodding, Oikawa cleared his throat. “I do,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck as he moved to sit. “But you’re here right now."

"And?" Shouyou pressed, lips twitching ever so slightly.

Oikawa could feel himself relax once he realized Shouyou was just teasing him. "That has to mean that you’re interested in me too...right?”

Shouyou’s lips spread into the smile he'd been attempting to fight. “Right,” he said honestly. “You are very interesting to me. Dangerously so.”

Oikawa wondered how a simple smile could make him feel so...warm. He ignored it when he remembered what he’d come for and the two possibilities that awaited him.

Shouyou could either accept and say he'd do the favor, ultimately saving Oikawa's skin, or he could deny it and call Oikawa a creep before swimming away to never be seen again.

Oikawa hoped to God it wasn't the latter.

“I have a question.”

“You seem to have many of those,” Shouyou said with a raised brow. He pushed himself up onto the rocks so he was sat beside Oikawa. “But I did promise to answer them so long as you answer mine...so, go on.”

Oikawa could feel the chill from the other’s skin, no doubt from being in the freezing water. Clearing his throat, he nodded and turned to fully face Shouyou.

“Would you mind doing me a favor?”

Shouyou tilted his head curiously, as if that wasn’t what he was expecting. “A favor? What kind of favor?”

“My father wants me to get married,” Oikawa began slowly, arms wrapping around himself. “But the person has someone else they are interested in and I don't want to be the one that gets in between them.”

With a furrowed brow, Shouyou raised a hand as if he were in a classroom. “What does ‘married’ mean? And why does it sound like something that is only done as a means of torture?”

Oikawa nearly snorted at the comment, not being able to deny that his arranged marriage did feel rather jail-like. “Married means that you are together with someone forever. Sometimes you can get what we call a divorce to separate from them, but it’s frowned upon. It is only for the most extreme cases and even then people try to work out their marriage before doing that.”

Scrunching his nose, Shouyou shook his head. “So...like pairs? I’ve never heard of a forced pair. That’s against all that is natural. Pairs must find each other. Meddling as your father is doing seems barbaric.”

“It is, but that’s how humans are sometimes. They force... _pairs_ , so that they can get more power, money, or influence.”

“Even if you are against it?” Shouyou asked with a deep frown. “You are his child, not a...a....” he trailed off. "The point is that you are someone's rightful half and if you force this then that is two people unhappy in this world!"

Oikawa, surprised by the outburst, chuckled. “That's an interesting way of looking at it. But humans are a lot different than mermaids, I guess. People don't need to marry for love if they don't want to."

"No love?" Shouyou asked, horrified. "How does one marry without love?!"

"My parents did," Oikawa murmured. "My older brother did, and so did other family members."

Shouyou took a moment, deep in thought until he spoke quietly. “Well...did you... _love_ your forced half?”

“No!” Oikawa said instantly, Shouyou flinching at the tone as the brunet cleared his throat with a deep flush on his cheeks. “Sorry," he said, fiddling with nails. "I didn't, really. I thought I could at one point, but that was before I knew his heart was taken. I don't really want to have them regret being with me when they loved someone else."

Shouyou looked skeptical but didn’t push. He reached out with a hand to place it atop Oikawa’s head, patting gently. “I apologize for your dilemma, however, I’m not entirely sure what you are asking of me, Tooru. What could I do to help?”

Oikawa knew it was either now or never. He'd chicken out if the conversation dragged on any longer.

"When you love someone, you can't marry someone else," Oikawa said.

"But you do not love anyone right now," Shouyou pointed out, Oikawa raising a hand to show he wasn't done speaking yet.

"I know I don't. But that doesn't mean that I can't pretend I do."

Shouyou didn't seem to be following, Oikawa taking that as a sign to explain more.

"There is something called fake dating in the human world. It's basically when two people who have a similar goal in mind get together. They're only friends, but they act like a couple or a pair."

"That...would be lying then, wouldn't it?"

Oikawa frowned. "Technically, but sometimes lying is the only way out of a bad situation. And if you think about it, this is a lie that isn't hurting anyone, really."

Agreeing, Shouyou flicked his tail in the water as he processed what he had been told. "So you want me to pretend to be the other half of your pair,” he pieced together, a stoic expression on his face.

“Pretty much..."

The silence in the cave was suffocating if Oikawa had to describe it. It was the tension was weighing down on him, wanting to crush him where he sat.

"You don't have to," Oikawa added in, though a part of him hoped Shouyou would want to. He didn't have much to offer, it odd that he couldn't even offer compensation for the favor in this situation minus shelter and food.

“If I do...you’ll be happy?”

“Very much,” Oikawa said, Shouyou removing his hand from his head and biting his lower lip.

“You said when we first met that friends work hard to make friends happy...” Shouyou began. “You’re the first human friend I have ever made, so your happiness is very important to me.”

Oikawa parted his lips to speak but found that he had a lump in his throat. Was Shouyou agreeing?

“So I’ll do any favor you want, so long as you promise that you will never lie to me or put me in harm's way. Friends don't hurt friends...right?”

Shouyou was _agreeing_.

Unable to speak, Oikawa nodded, vision blurring as he sniffed. Shouyou tensed from beside him, leaning forward to grasp his cheeks in his hands.

“Y...You said it would make you happy yet you cry?!” Shouyou asked frantically, thumbs moving across Oikawa’s cheeks as he tried to think of a way to stop the liquid from escaping the other’s eyes “Did I make a mistake?!”

Laughing and effectively confusing the mermaid more, Oikawa shook his head and let out a shaky breath. “No,” he assured as he closed his eyes to try and calm to tears.  “I just...I’m relieved. I thought for sure you wouldn’t do it and now I’m really, _really_ happy,” he admitted, raising a hand to place it on top of Shouyou’s own. “Thank you. I’ll make sure that once this is all over, I can do you a favor that is just as big as this one.”

The mermaid in front of him didn’t speak, so Oikawa opened his eyes slowly to see the ginger staring back at him with a flustered expression. His cheeks were redder than Oikawa had ever seen them, eyes downcast and lips pressed into a thin line.

"What?"

"You're just...warm," Shouyou murmured, pulling his hands away and slipping back into the water easily.

Oikawa wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not but focused more on composing himself. Once he'd managed that, they began to talk details. 

Shouyou's backstory, where he grew up, whether he spoke more than one language—interestingly enough, he did—if he had siblings, how his family was, and so on. 

Through this all, however, Oikawa noticed that Shouyou was acting strangely. At first, he thought maybe Shouyou had felt forced and nearly told him that they could call it off if he was uncomfortable, but before he could mention it, Shouyou spoke.

"Give me your wrist."

"Huh?"

"Wrist," Shouyou insisted, and so Oikawa extended his hand.

“So you are fully aware that I intend to keep my promise no matter what,” Shouyou said, slipping what looked to be a bracelet onto his wrist. He was red again, one hand holding Oikawa's carefully and the other pressed against the bracelet. "I need to go, but just come back with clothes tomorrow and we'll go from there."

With that, Shouyou disappeared beneath the surface, Oikawa watching until he couldn't make out anymore orange from where he sat.

* * *

 

Oikawa sat in the darkness of his room and fiddled with the bracelet on his wrist. Once he'd gotten home, he went to shower and even managed to eat something without feeling like it would come back up. It was odd to not be so anxious that any little thing had him making a run for his window.

He had a fake boyfriend and one that was completely untraceable to his father, at that.

It was just all too perfect for Oikawa to believe.

Along with relief, another emotion pooled in the middle of his chest, though he was sure it was just appreciation for Shouyou's willingness to go along with such a disorganized plan. 

Oikawa shut his eyes and thought of the mermaid. 

His pout. 

His smart remarks.

The way he panicked whenever something happened that he wasn't able to understand. 

The way his cheeks got red whenever he and Oikawa held hands or...

Oikawa paused, sitting up in his bed and blinking in confusion. He worked on making his beating heart calm, swallowing and running a hand through his hair. 

Appreciation, yeah.

That’s definitely what it had to be.


End file.
